Dead Can Dance

Back in 2005, when Dead Can Dance briefly reunited to tour the U.S. seven years after splitting up, vocalist Lisa Gerrard compared her long, oft-contentious creative partnership with DCD singer Brendan Perry to birthing a child. “When you’re going through it, it’s quite painful. But afterwards, when you think about having the beautiful baby in your arms, you don’t remember the pain,” she says. After another seven years, the gothiterranean duo has returned with a new creation: Anastasis, their first studio album since 1996. It’s lovely and mysterious, offering no hints of discord. Like always, Gerrard’s ethereal contralto and Perry’s corporeal croon complement each other nicely, and the exotic, richly textured tunes simultaneously evoke Moroccan opium dens, vampiric Renaissance Faires and haunted Byzantine cathedrals. If it’s even half as gorgeous when brought to the stage during their first tour since ‘05, their pain is our gain. -Michael Alan Goldberg